Investigation Of The Traitorous

Yridia IX

Teu stared out her hotel window, her eyes watching the area with interest. She was in another’s domain. This was a first for her. As she sat musing her comlink buzzed. She looked down, it was Sai. She let out a sigh. The room was high class but she missed home and her children. Fremoc had told her to stay home but she wanted to assist her House.

“Hello my Lord”

“Teu, I want you to work with a Dralin Fortea to investigate the crashes.” There was no room for questioning.

“Yes my Lord” Teu paused for a moment. “Where would I meet this Dralin Fortea?”

“Down in the Lobby Teu. Be quick about finding out who did this. I want to know who’s behind this.” Sai spoke quickly.

“Yes my lord.” Teu turned off her comm. Turning around she grabbed her small bag and a datapad, sliding her lightsaber hilt into her pocket quickly. She exited her room and quickly took the down to the bar. She looked over the files that are on her datapad she frowned.
As she stepped off the lift, in the lobby she took a couple of looks around she really wished people wore name takes or even had arrows pointing them out. She snickered slightly as she thought of a man standing with arrows that read “Dralin Fortea”.

She shook her head quickly, she had seen a picture of what the man looked like, and he was an average looking man in her opinion. She smirked again. As she looked about, standing off to the side was the man she was looking for, he nearly blended into the shadows.

Teu approached the man, her eyes weary of him. Once she was near the man, only steps away. “Your Dralin I take it?”

“You must be Teu.” He replied back.

“Indeed, Sai told me I had to work with you to investigate the wreckage.” Teu frowned slightly. “I take it Rovoni told you the same?”

“Your quick” Dralin replied sharply, his eyes watched the Sadowian.

“Shall we head out, the quicker we figure this out the quick.

These shuttle trips are becoming a regular thing, Dralin thought to himself. Dralin had commissioned a shuttle to take Teu and himself- along with a group of his ubiquitous INTEL personnel- to the island on which the three Quaestors had found the crash site. A dull hum of the engines washed over him as he took comfort in the durasteel hull of the ship, holding him separate from the vast void of space. Dralin could feel the presence of what other Tarenti jokingly referred to as his entourage; he could feel their watchfulness and the respect they held for him as surely as one can feel the sun's warmth. This contrasted with the Naga Sadowan sitting across from him, a woman who very clearly did not want to be here. Why Tsainetomo chose her was a mystery to him.

"What are we to do?" Teu inquired imperiously, her aristocratic tone very clearly conveying her disapproval of being paired with Dralin in this venture. "The Quaestors already investigated the wreckage; this seems quite unnecessary."

"We do what we are told," Dralin replied. He was unfamiliar with the way Sadowans obeyed their leader, but the former Death Dealer held his Quaestor in the highest esteem. "The Quaestors have more important things to do, and cannot afford the time to sit on an island and wait. Whoever is behind these attacks may show again at this wreck, and if not, the rakghouls need to be taken care of regardless."

Teu nodded, looking away with her arms crossed, her mind clearly elsewhere. Dralin could feel that she was thinking of others, a foreign concept to him with very few exceptions.

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With a lurch, the shuttle touched down on the beach, its repulsors kicking sand into the air. If whoever's here didn't know we were coming, they should know we're here by now... He silently cursed himself for not thinking of a stealthier approach.

With the shuttle door thrown open, the INTEL squad made their way forward, as if securing the beachfront in the middle of occupied territory. It seemed a silly thing to Dralin, but he allowed them their little show. After they combed the beach, the soldiers lined up on each side of the door. If I didn't know any better, I'd think they watched too many 501st training vids. The colonel smirked at the thought.

Striding out onto the warm sand, Teu and Dralin both scanned the horizon. The wreckage was just on the other side of a thicket of trees and foliage, and they knew little of what to expect.

Teu groaned as she pushed forward, Dralin moved with her. Neither enjoyed the fact that they both had to work with one another. However they would get the job done. As both pushed past the brush they were met with a dismal sight. Debris littered the blackened ground, smoke billowed from the opened hull.

Teu took in the scene before her; she opened herself up to the force for a moment to ensure that no one was around them but herself and Dralin. "For the moment it seems like the place is clear...however that could change. If anyone survived that then they must be one lucky person."

Dralin nodded. "Let’s go look at the cockpit of each ship, get an idea of the flight plan before the trip."

"Sure, have your men patrol the area. We don’t need anyone sneaking up on us." Teu grinned slightly, and then headed towards the wreck. She squeezed into the tight opening, the inside of the wreckage was dark and smoke filled. Teu Coughed for a moment, she reached into her pack and pulled out a glowstick. The light illuminated the immediate area, it was dark from fire.

Teu scrambled into the cockpit, not much was left. The viewport was ripped open. Dark matter seemed to cover the various panels. She moved to a panel that seemed to be relatively intack. "lets see if this ship has anything to tell."

She pulled off her data pad and pulled out some links. She worked quickly, humming under her breath as she typed on her data pad. The computer opened easily under her hands. Within moments she had the ships files transferring into her data pad.

As Teu worked, she felt something wrong, someone was watching her. She looked around carefully; no one seemed to be openly watching her. However the feeling didn’t go away, unplugging herself from the ships computer she scrambled back to the exit. Once she was back outside the ship the feeling of unease magnified. As she turned around the front of the wreck, eight rakghouls, stared at her.

"Dralin. You might want to come out here." Teu called loudly, as she pulled her lightsaber out of her pocket.

"Why?" Dralins voice came from somewhere unseen.

Teu frowned. "Rakghouls."

As Teu said rakghouls, the beasts charged forward. Their teeth exposed as they hissed loudly at the Sadowian.

Follow my lead, Dralin telepathically ordered his INTEL soldiers. The colonel usually gave orders to his team directly into their minds, originally devising it as a psychological tactic against their enemies. By now, they were used to his voice in their heads. And when I find out who missed these things in their perimeter sweep... Dralin let the threat hang over their heads. He was well-known among his troops for his harsh form of justice, but was respected for limiting the punishment to those directly responsible, unlike most traditional Sith.

The familiar snap-hiss of Teu's lightsaber drew Dralin and the INTEL squad like shadowmoth to the flame. Drawing upon the Force to augment his speed, Dralin burst around the corner of the downed ship, his trusted 22T4 hold-out blaster out of its holster faster than he could blink, sand being thrown into the air as he skidded to a halt. Before he had even fully come to a stop, Dralin was pulling the trigger, blaster fire lancing forth to take the closest rakghoul to Teu in the shoulder and face. By the time the INTEL soldiers arrived, Teu was already engaged with two rakghouls, backpedaling slowly as her Soresu mastery took over, her emerald blade clipping portions of rakghoul flesh from her attackers. The Sadowan Rollmaster weaved a viridian wall around herself, and try as the creatures might, not one claw landed upon her.

The INTEL soldiers brought their blaster rifles to bear and fired as rakghouls streamed around Teu, five of the eight deciding to move onto easier prey. Blaster fire rained down upon the monsters, and two fell under the onslaught, with a third hobbled as his leg was blasted off entirely, ending in a burnt stump. Dralin holstered his blaster and drew his own lightsaber, igniting it directly into the closest rakghoul as it reached for him. The creature gave an inhuman scream of pain as the blade instantly burnt a tunnel into its internal organs through its stomach. Swinging the blade out of the rakghoul's side, he twirled it, a deadly baton warding off the other monsters. his recent adoption of Ataru techniques into his usual Makashi and Soresu mix showing through.

As the two Dark Jedi fought with their sabers, the troops continued to fire, a constant din of blaster fire drowning out the hum of their lightsabers, but not the cries of the rakghouls they destroyed. Dralin moved forward to assist Teu in dispatching the last of her opponents, leaving the last rakghoul he had dealt with to his well-trained troops. Two emerald blades cut through air and rakghoul alike, the smell of ozone and cauterized flesh filling their nostrils.

Suddenly, there was a moment of silence. It took Dralin several moments to notice that it was the constant roar of blaster fire that had ceased, and that the battle was finished as suddenly as it had began.

Teu held her lightsaber aloft for a moment before relaxing her muscles. The dead rakghouls littered the ground on top of the debris. She turned at looked at Dralin. "Lets get back to the shuttle. We need to look over this data and get a report to our leaders"

"OKay." Dralin quickly motioned to his men who formed up behind him.

Teu smirked slightly, she enjoyed her freedom back home. She started back to the transport, her eyes looking over the data, while most of it was encoded or scrambled bits and pieces did manage to come through. As she was so absorbed in reading she nearly tripped over a stick, but managed catch herself.

As the group entered the transport, Teu quicky plugged her datapad into the ship and looked over a few more files."Dralin, most of the information is either lost, garbled or encoded beyond my ability to crack. However this video log from the captian seems to be accessible."

Dralin came to stand beside Teu, "Play it."

Teu pushed a button, a females voice filled the room. While on the screen a average looking female stood infront of the recorder. The ship captains chamber was behind her. "Today....picked....cargo...ordered...deliever...secret..."

Teu hit a button to pause the recording."You know this would be much easier if it wasnt skipping ever two words"

"Keep playing it." Dralin watched the screen intently.

Teu shrugged and pressed play agan.

The recording continued, the skipping stoped. "We have come close to where we are supposed to deliever the goods. Its in a system i've never heard of but we are getting paid graciously for this delievery." An alarm begin to blare in the distance. "Frak, not good. Something jsut happened." A rakghoul filled the background, the captain screamed loudly as it bit her. The recording goes blank.

Teu shut it off. "That explains it, they would only need one rakghoul and they could get out and infect the crew. Interesting tactic, but why here?"

"Hows the rest of the data?" Dralin rubbed his chin for a moment.

"Unbreackable. its encoded rather well. The Quaesters will have to read it." Teu sighed softly.